Relevant Health, a newly launched innovative health technology startup accelerator focused on bringing products to market, announced that it is now accepting applications from health tech startups for its Fall 2015 class. Additionally, the accelerator launched its website and the portal to its streamlined application process. U.S. and international startups are encouraged to apply.
Relevant Health’s five-month program involves an intensive product-focused curriculum that gives founders of health tech startups the skills to define, develop, position and launch a viable health tech product. The new accelerator will be based out of a brand-new cowork space in the Rockville Innovation Center, centrally located in the heart of the Montgomery County (Maryland) life sciences corridor. Companies admitted to the accelerator will have access to the cowork facility along with other support that includes up to $50,000 in funding, mentorship, development support from a pool of software engineers, and access to the local health tech ecosystem.
MedCity ENGAGE has quickly become a destination for fresh thinking and the latest solutions for patient engagement and healthcare delivery. That’s due in large part to speakers who are both established and up-and-coming leaders, and includes those in the trenches of healthcare.
Here are just some of the ENGAGE speakers, who will cover an array of topics that will make you better able to implement your own patient engagement solutions.
Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland, College Park, will this month open a shared $30 million high-power data center.
The 3,786-square-foot facility, called Maryland Advanced Research Computing Center (MARCC) will be used by researchers from the two universities for work involving big data and is expected to be fully functional by the end of July. The facility, located near Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore, was paid for with $30 million in state funding. Hopkins and University of Maryland will share ongoing costs for maintenance, staffing and power.
While we’ve seen how 3D printing has dramatically revolutionized the medical industry by allowing surgeons to print replicas of organs and their surrounding areas in order to better understand them before an actual surgical procedure, the next evolutionary step is to look into 3D printing the organs themselves to replace a patient’s existing failing organ.
Chancellor of the University System of Maryland William “Brit” E. Kirwan is serving his last day of his 13-year tenure Tuesday before Robert L. Caret takes over on July 1.
Caret is returning to Maryland after serving as president of the University of Massachusetts system. He was president of Towson Univeristy from 2003 to 2011.
Montgomery County Department of Economic Development offers a program that provides free one-on-one business assistance to entrepreneurs, business owners, and start-ups.
A business development specialist will be available at locations throughout Montgomery County to meet directly with business owners. Experts will provide information about county financial initiatives and other programs, make introductions and identify the connections your business needs.
This program is open to any entrepreneur and/or business located within Montgomery County. Montgomery County works hard to support local businesses and has a variety of resources including industry sector experts in IT, cybersecurity, life sciences, green, international, government contracting, and more. Support is also available for navigating the county procurement and Local Small Business Reserve Program.
REDI…SET…WATCH…5 Questions with Michael Stiefvater, Business Development Manager at Rockville REDI
The University of Maryland is part of the reason that Maryland, as a state, is producing some really innovative entrepreneurial talent. Their student-run incubator and co-working space Startup Shell (shell, because the UMD mascot is the Terrapin -very clever, guys), which opened in 2012, is home to a lot of really interesting student-led projects. Most of the startups focus on students’ issues or problems related to fields that students are studying.
Has your lab had a successful technology partnership or program experience with its state or local government office? If so, we want to hear about it! The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is now accepting submissions for its 2015 edition of the Federal Laboratories & State and Local Governments: Partners for Technology Transfer Success publication.
The goal of this publication is to highlight the value that state and local government entities can obtain for their regions by forming strategic partnerships with federal laboratories. Federal labs play a significant role in creating technology-based regional economic development. The State & Local Government (S&LG) publication works to raise awareness about the impact federal labs can have on their surrounding areas.
Innovator of the Year was created in 2002 to honor Maryland businesses and/or individuals who have had a positive effect and tremendous impact in Maryland.
To nominate someone for this prestigious award, please submit a short description addressing how your nominee meets the criteria.
Nominations are due July 10, 2015.
A process that accelerates the separation of bacteria could be the answer to the food industry’s prayers.
Food contamination, which refers to the presence of unwanted chemicals and bacteria in food, has been plastered across the news lately. Dozens of products have been recalled in the past 60 days. For example, Blue Bell Creameries had a massive recall of all ice cream products due to an April listeria outbreak, according to the FDA’s website.
Over the past two weeks, in their respective FY 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies appropriations bills (known as Labor-H), House and Senate appropriators have shown support for biomedical research funding by recommending NIH budget levels higher than even the Administration had requested. But controversy still reigns over other parts of the bill, particularly patient-centered outcomes research associated with the Affordable Care Act.
eHealth Initiatives’s iTHRIVE Innovation Challenge, August 12-13 in Washington DC, is a competition and event that convenes business leaders, government officials, innovators, investors and promising entrepreneurs looking to shape how health technology can improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare. The Challenge invites startups from around the world to submit proposals that tackle healthcare system problems head-on, focusing on three critical areas of the eHealth Initiative 2020 Roadmap: consumer-oriented health IT; population health management; and interoperability between providers, payers and across the delivery system.
If you have an idea about how health technology can improve the quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare, notice gaps in the system that offer easy fixes, or wish to share your vision for better healthcare delivery, join the competition and the conversation.
External models of R&D innovation are the rage in Pharma today, as they should be – the future of our industry depends on a great deal more rather than less collaboration.
In a very healthy way, lots of experiments are being done across the ecosystem and the final scorecard for what worked and what didn’t is years from being tallied up; however, the early biomarkers are positive and it’s a widely-held belief that a critical element of exceptional R&D organizations in the future will be creative BD engagement. In short, great BD and R&D are becoming synonymous with each other.
Funding and Research Opportunities
The following funding opportunity announcements from the NHLBI or other components of the National Institutes of Health, might be of interest: Notices:
Notice of Correction to PAR-15-280 “Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R01)”(NOT-AG-15-009) National Institute on Aging Notice of Correction to PAR-15-282 “Multidisciplinary Studies of HIV/AIDS and Aging (R21)”(NOT-AG-15-011) National Institute on Aging Program Announcements:
Pre-application: Opportunities for Collaborative Research at the NIH Clinical Center (X02)(PAR-15-286) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): December 15, 2015; December 15, 2016; December 15, 2017, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization. Opportunities for Collaborative Research at the NIH Clinical Center (U01)(PAR-15-287) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): April 11, 2016; April 11, 2017; April 11, 2018, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.Please note that most links to RFAs, PAs, and Guide Notices will take you to the NIH Web site. RFPs will take you to FedBizOpps. Links to RFPs will not work past their proposal receipt date. Archived versions of RFPs posted on FedBizOpps can be found on the FedBizOpps site using the FedBizOpps search function. Under “Document to Search,” select Archived Documents.
AstraZeneca has joined forces with the University of Cambridge for three more joint schemes designed to develop the next generation of world-class scientists.
The schemes will support more than 80 PhD scholarships and eight clinical lectureships over the next five years spanning translational science, basic and clinical research.
Proteus Digital Health won FDA approval for what the company calls “the only device with an FDA-sanctioned claim for measuring medication adherence.” Proteus technology, the development of which we’ve been covering for a number of years now, uses tiny injestible sensors attached to drug tablets and a patch that can detect when they’ve been swallowed. The patch then uses its built-in Bluetooth antenna to share when every pill was swallowed with the matching smartphone app, which in turn passes the readings to family, caretakers, and the patient’s physician.
When Milton Wright III got his third cancer diagnosis, he cried until he laughed. He was 20 and had survived leukemia twice before, first when he was eight and again as a teen. Each time he’d suffered through years of punishing chemotherapy.
But now he had checked himself in to Seattle Children’s Hospital. An aspiring model, he had taken a fall before a photo shoot and found he couldn’t shake off the pain in his ribs. When the doctors started preparing him for a spinal tap, he knew the cancer was back. “I said, Oh, man, they are going to tell me I relapsed again,” he recalls. “They’re going to give me my six months.”
The State Entrepreneurship Index tracks core trends and reflects states’ entrepreneurship environments, growth in business formation and technological innovation. Each state index is calculated by comparing five key economic components and determining how much their performance deviate above or below the “median state,” which is assigned a value of 1.0.
Medicare and Medicaid, the two mainstays of government health insurance, turn 50 this month, having made it possible for most Americans in poverty and old age to get medical care. While the Affordable Care Act fills the gap for people who don’t qualify for help from those two programs, there are important improvements still needed in both Medicare and Medicaid.
At the time the two programs were enacted in July 1965, advocates of Medicare, which today covers 46 million Americans over the age of 65 and nine million younger disabled people, expected that it would expand to cover virtually all Americans. Although polls between 1999 and 2009 showed consistent majorities in favor of expanding Medicare to people between the ages of 55 and 64 to cover more of the uninsured, it never happened.
Scientists may apply online until September 22, 2015 at http://www.openinnovationinscience.at for the ‘Lab for Open Innovation in Science’ continuing studies programme taking place in Vienna.
Health sciences’ two greatest challenges are the lack of incentives for investigating new research questions and the complexity of current research findings, according to a recent survey of international researchers and scientists conducted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG). These findings provided the impetus for launching the LBG’s Tell us! crowdsourcing project in their Open Innovation in Science initiative. This initiative invites patients, families, and professionals to actively contribute to the development of scientific research questions in the field of mental illness. Findings from this unique research approach will impact the world’s first educational programme for the application of Open Innovation in science, known as ‘Lab for Open Innovation in Science’ (LOIS).
Chinese investment in the Puget Sound region is about to go beyond real estate.
A Chinese venture capital group wants to open an office in the Seattle area so it can invest in the region’s tech and biotech industries, the director of the city of Seattle’s economic development office Brian Surratt confirmed Wednesday.
